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Scots Gothic: A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe in Ayrshire

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Edgar Allen Poe

31/10/2007

BBC Radio Scotland - Scots Gothic: A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe in Ayrshire

Billy Kay discovers how the works of Edgar Allan Poe were inspired by Ayrshire.

Billy Kay discovers the Ayrshire of 'ghaists and houlets' visited by Edgar Allan Poe and asks if it was where his macabre imagination took fire.

As a child, when Edgar Poe lost both his parents, he was taken in by the family of a Virginia tobacco merchant, John Allan. When Edgar was six, the Allans came home to Irvine for an extended visit. Billy Kay discovers the Ayrshire of "ghaists an houlets", "witches and warlocks", bodysnatchers, premature burials and cannibals - and asks whether Poe's macabre imagination took fire in this cauldron of Scots Gothic.

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